I shared a platform in Dewsbury with Baroness Warsi’s current husband in a meeting against persecution of British Muslims through “anti-terror” legislation. While that particular persecution was under the New Labour brand of Conservatives, and nothing has changed under the official Tories, it nonetheless always seemed slightly strange to me that the family has such strong and sensible views and yet the Baroness, who has described her husband as her “political rock”, is a Tory.

I offer this thought as some background to the principled and highly praiseworthy action of Sayeeda Warsi in resigning from the Cabinet over Britain’s acquiescence in the appalling massacre of Gaza. A politician who believes in anything other than their own career and bank balance is a rare thing indeed today. I offer her my congratulations and sincere good wishes for the future.

71 Comments

Good for her, though like you, how she ever felt at home as a Tory, I’ll never quite know.

Can’t let this story go by without mention of what one cabinet colleague commented. When I saw someone had called it a “disappointing and frankly unnecessary decision”, I correctly assumed that it came from the man with the most punchable face in politics. (in case anyone couldn’t guess, that’s George Osborne )

They are straw men narratives of little real importance; facades keep us distracted and deceived.

The only true rivalry is the thieves, the 1% if you like, against the rest of us.

Warsi was shafted out of her joint chairmanship. She was probably naively unaware there were some who couldn’t abide her like in such a position who have huge resources to manufacture the “staying at a friend without paying rent” excuse.

Starting any time now, Jives. Strange how these odd “Synchronous Events” are happening all the time these days, whenever the elite plans become temporary derailed. All quite by chance, of course. Carl Gustav Jung would have had something to say, I’m sure.

And a timely bomb hoax to steal the limelight, as the Israeli murder machine slouches towards Bethlehem

Exact same words were uttered by me, soon as I saw “Qatari” those pederasts in that little emirate have have been trained well, and boy do they jump to attention.

The “suspected device” that heralds a typhoon take off! Good to know that as a passenger there is every odd that I will not make it to may destination in one piece! How is that for an advert for air travel?

Wasrsi did well to get out of the cabinet has anyone seen the hate filled comments of DM? Clearly she has hit the zionist scum in the nuts hard!

There’s nothing strange or difficult for a moderately intelligent person to understand in a decent person being a conservative. That the Conservative party has been taken over by agents of Israel, liberal wankers and stupid greens is no reason for sane, decent and intelligent conservatives to abandon the struggle to influence the only party that even pretends to uphold the values without which the British people are doomed to the status of a minority in their own homeland, which is to say genocided, as they have been already in London, Leicester, Luton, Slough and soon Birmingham.

Agent Camerons’s ‘negotiated two state solution’ is synthetic, an apology for time out. Cameron prefers to defer the suffering while continuing to sell arms to Israel, a country that has murdered the uninvolved while more are left in agony, misery and sorrow.

Sayeeda Warsi has created fundamental divisions in a political party whose cancerous womb can no longer support life.

Contrast Baroness Warsi’s principled stand with that of Clair Short (another working class girl made good) back in 2003 in the days before the war on Iraq.

Short didn’t have the backbone to carry through her threat, allowed Blair to talk her out of it, and probably significantly reduced the labour backbench revolt. I saw her talk shortly (sorry!) afterwards and she said it wouldn’t have made any real difference to the vote whether she resigned or not. Is that the point? Warsi has carried it through anyway, and good for her! Maybe she could start a new party of “politicians with honour”.

@Porkfright: You mean synchronicity? Didn’t Jung collaborate to some extent with the Nazis? I’ve never quite made up my mind whether he was a “Schindler-type” or a useful idiot. It would suit the Nazis for someone to come up with a metaphysical explanation for what is straightforward sleight of hand. Sorry… TOO MANY convenient coincidences, although I do subscribe to the Shakespearean (Hamlet) perceptive.

Be reasonable, Daniel, many commendable things about traditional conservative values. Problem is that Conservative politicians from Thatcher on pervert them to get favour from Western oligarchs… as do Labour, with labour values. They seem to be almost trapped in perpetuating the glorification of the rich. If Baroness Warsi has seen the light, and it seems that she has… what has gone before should not matter. This is a great moment for multi-cultural Britain.

A BBC News website page has asked whether hospitals and schools (in Gaza) can be legitimate targets during a war, a question that rightly is normally not open to debate during conflicts. The article opens with an endorsement for such war crimes from an Israeli student who “explains why she thinks hospitals and UN shelters are legitimate targets for Israeli rockets”

Update: (5/8/14 10:30): BBC News appear to have changed the headline for this page to “Gaza conflict: Contrasting views on targeting”. The updated headline can be seen on the article’s page.

I do think. Brian, that the people’s news broadcaster (well we pay for it!) has for some time (post-Hutton after removal of Greg Dyke?) been Number 10’s news broadcaster. Baroness Warsi would know where the pressure for such a contemptable article as you identified had come from, and I’m sure she wouldn’t have been amused. Interesting times…

as an australian who has not voted for any party since our Labor Party went along with the invasion of Iraq, i wonder what you would make of our Labor Shadow Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus. ABC’s James Carleton begins by saying it’s legally clear Hamas committed war crimes, but what about Israel! on the ABC website, there’s no indication Dreyfus will speak about Gaza:

Zionist Council of Victoria: Speech by The Hon Mark Dreyfus QC MP
Cabinet Secretary Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency
I am going to start with something that you have heard before. And that is that the Government of Australia supports the State of Israel, and that we do so one hundred percent.
Since well before the birth of the modern State of Israel Australia has had deep ties with the Zionist dream…
The Australian Government supports wholeheartedly the State of Israel, and we will continue to do so with loyalty, with integrity, and with convictionhttp://www.zcv.org.au/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=538&Itemid=436

a pox on all their parties. the Zionist Project is a western construct, meant to maintain western power. that’s my opinion.

“Twit. Of course we each have a special interest in our own culture and background. ”

Or as Adam Thomson Ambassador to Pakistan said to me as a teenager.
” You don’t understand, We don’t get involved in Politics ”
???
Come again??? The war on terror and the current war by terror aren’t politics?

All I was saying is that there was a brief period in Scottish history when she sided with the Inquisitioners and Catechists of the Roman Catholic Church, very much the wrong side of history. There is a parallel between all of those who are now crawling up the backside of Israeli Zionism, very much the wrong side of history.

Yesterday Baroness Warsi resigned, and previously Craig resigned for the same reason. Many congratulations to both of them for seeing where the UK government was dragging them.

But I draw another comparison between political Islam crawling up the backside of Israeli/Zionist NSA/GCHQ modern Inquisition and USUKIS sponsored Jihadism.

In a world ruled by Allah, ideology is always more important than raw, political power.

On August 5, 2014, one of British government’s senior cabinet minister, Baroness Sayeeda Hussain Warsi resigned from David Cameron’s government over its pro-Israel policy during the recent 29-day Israel’s genocidal war on 1.8 million Palestinians trapped inside Gaza Strip.

With deep regret I have this morning written to the prime minister & tendered my resignation. I can no longer support government policy on Gaza, she tweeted.

British finance minister George Osborne (married to a Zionist Jew) condemned Warsi’s “disappointing and frankly unnecessary” decision to resign over situation in Gaza.

British prime minister David Cameron in a statement said that he was sad over Baroness Warsi’s decision to quit for believing that London is not an honest broker when it comes to Israel-Palestinian conflict. Cameron asserted that his government believes in a negotiated “two-state solution” to the Jewish occupation of Palestine. However, as a committed Zionist, Cameron repeated Israeli myth of Israel has the right to defend itself. Read more here.

“Of course, we believe that Israel has the right to defend itself. But we have consistently made clear our grave concerns about the heavy toll of civilian casualties and have called on Israel to exercise restrain, an to find ways to bring this fighting to an end,” Cameron said in a statement.

On August 5, Jewish The Economist claimed that Lady Warsi’s decision could not be based on Israeli actions in Gaza, because in 2006, she supported Israel against Lebanese Hizbullah.

Last week, Peter Luff and Nicholas Soamese, country’s former defense ministers, also criticized David Cameron for not applying pressure on Netanyahu to stop the bloodshed in Gaza.

Douglas Murray, who called a pro-Palestinian rally in London last month, “anti-Semitic”, in an article at Jewish The Spectator (August 5) called Baroness Warsi “over-promoted, incapable and incompetent“.

Baroness Warsi (born 1971) is daughter of a Muslim Pakistani immigrant. She was the first female Muslim to become a cabinet minister in 2004. In 2007 she was given life peerage to represent the ruling Conservative party in the House of Lords. She recently held senior cabinet post of Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Warsi is married to Iftakhar Azam. Both has five children. Both Warsi and Azam are non-practicing Muslims.

What’s the latest score in this shoot-fish-in-a-barrel spectacle enjoyed by beer-swilling Israelis in deckchairs from the hills overlooking Gaza?

Four hundred and sixty Palestinian children and 250 women murdered – 1,938 souls exterminated altogether so far. Not only that, but nearly 2,900 little ones are injured or maimed. Half a million people have been cruelly displaced, their homes reduced to rubble. All are starving and thirsty and lack the most basic necessities.

David Cameron

“I am a passionate friend of Israel – and that’s the way it’s going to stay,” he told a Conservative Friends of Israel lunch.

And addressing Israel’s Knesset he pledged to defeat any boycotting of Israel. “Britain opposes boycotts,” he stupidly said without having consulted the British people on the matter and ignoring the rapid growth of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Cameron’s other suck-up remarks to Israel’s rulers include:

“Proud to be pursuing the strongest and deepest possible relationship between our two countries…”
“Delegitimizing the state of Israel is wrong, it’s abhorrent… “
“With me, you have a British prime minister whose belief in Israel is unbreakable and whose commitment to Israel’s security will always be rock solid… “
“When I became prime minister I legislated to change it [the law on universal jurisdiction]. My country is open to you [war criminals]. And you are welcome to visit anytime [yes, including those responsible for abusing and torturing children].”

According to the Jewish Chronicle, Cameron assured Jewish leaders: “I am with you and with the Israeli people, genuinely. As far as I’m concerned, an enemy of Israel is an enemy of mine. A threat to Israel is a threat to us all.”

This readiness to be influenced by a foreign country – and a rogue one at that – is unbelievable from a man whose first loyalty is supposed to be to the British people and their interest. He has to go.

Ed Miliband

Miliband, seems far more concerned about israel’s welfare, than the slaughter of Gaza’s innocents. He said Israel’s military action will increase future threats to its security, while the “wholly unjustified” rocket attacks and tunnels showed Hamas’s “murderous intent”.

“I am a supporter of Israel and I believe in Israel’s right to self-defence… The escalation of violence engulfing Gaza… is losing Israel friends in the international community day by day.”

Anyone who thinks the right of self-defence extends to the brutal occupier whose helpless victim puts up as show of defiance is not welcome here and will have to go.

Nick Clegg

Clegg suggested Israel could surprise the world with “an unexpected act of political magnanimity” which would help drive a wedge between the political and military wings of Hamas and garner Israel international support.

Magnanimity is a strange word in a war crimes situation in which Israel’s military jackboot has been on the Palestinians’ throat for decades and any resistance is reviled, demonized and met with collective punishment of the foulest kind.

He once seemed to be his own man and in 2009 wrote about Gaza:

What has the British government and the international community done to lift the blockade? Next to nothing. Tough-sounding declarations are issued at regular intervals but little real pressure is applied. It is a scandal that the international community has sat on its hands in the face of this unfolding crisis.

That was provocative stuff in pro-Israel Westminster. But after electoral good fortune catapulted him to the top, Clegg changed his tune. For example, in the wake of Israel’s murderous assault on the Mavi Marmara, he welcomed the appointment of David Trimble to Israel’s farcical inquiry into its own entrails, well aware that Trimble was a founding member of a new international movement “Friends of Israel Initiative”.

He attended a fringe meeting of his party’s Friends of Israel group with the new deputy Israeli ambassador, then came out with this statement:

Israel’s right to thrive in peace and security is non-negotiable for Liberal Democrats. No other country so continually has its right to exist called into question as does Israel, and that is intolerable. There can be no solution to the problems of the Middle East that does not include a full and proper recognition of Israel by all parties to the conflict.

This is a far cry from the guiding principles set down in the preamble to his own party’s constitution, a very fine document indeed, especially where it says:

We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals… Our responsibility for justice and liberty cannot be confined by national boundaries; we are committed to fight poverty, oppression, hunger, ignorance, disease and aggression wherever they occur and to promote the free movement of ideas, people, goods and services.

So what has the coalition government, of which you are deputy leader, Mr Clegg, done to lift the Gaza blockade?

Clegg said that despite being a self-proclaimed Zionist, he regards the Israeli action in Gaza as “ugly disproportionate and tragic” and will harm Israel in the long-term. This is the first I’ve seen in print that Clegg is wedded to the Zionist cause, although his words and inaction have suggested it for some time it.

“If you’re looking for an explanation of why the government and many MPs have been quite so pusillanimous … go no further than the reaction to Hague in 2006, when he had temerity to call Israeli action disproportionate. There was opprobrium poured all over William*,” said one former Tory minister, who would like to see the government condemn Israel’s shelling of Gaza but believes that is highly unlikely.

*Not least by Stanley Kalms, sometime party treasurer, largely responsible for appointing Jonathan Sacks as Chief Rabbi – yes, that Israel-aligned – and major Conservative donor. Ennobled by Tories for being very rich, but thrown out after voting UKIP. He went to town on Hague’s comments in 2006.

I am aware of that, Peacewisher. But it still doesn’t matter if every town is encrusted in Party X’s slogans written in gold and diamonds, courtesy of our greatest financiers, if the polling booths are full of Party Y. And Jewish money is unlikely to buy Muslim votes.

What a principled and brave stand Baroness Warsi has taken; I’d like to see her go even further now and renounce the ridiculous title. After all, as with kings, queens, princes and princesses, barons and baronesses belong in fairy stories, pantomime or Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. Time to get real.

I notice that commenter Komodo uses the handle Ba’al Zevul (with Gaza) when commenting about Israel/Palestine.

Am I correct in recalling that under the previous dispensation commenters were invited to use only one handle (and to announce any intended change of handle, which should be used for all comments in the future)?

Could you please let me (and perhaps others) know whether I too can be allowed to use different handles according to the theme I’m commenting on?

Rose – Agree as usual. The logic is inescapable on another count: there’s over 700 peers, and seats for only 250 in the Lords. Old peers never die, they simply rot on the benches, and there’s another lot of cash cows for Plastic Man to reward shortly.

Comments on that link also interesting… mention of Lynton Crosby, and that Cameron may “play dirty” to stay in No. 10 if labour are “merely” the party with the most seats. [as Bush was, of course, in the 2000 US election]

Rather than get in the way of Scottish independence, and to try for a little continuity, I’ll try and keep tabs on Tony Blair on the ‘Apocalypse Blair’ thread. He seems to be a little shy of publicity at the moment,and it will be good for him.

I don’t think any but a small minority of the Tory vote on the street has any permanent lasting loyalty to Zionism, or that it figures much in their choice of who to vote for. Whereas, the Tories’ repeated flaccidity over atrocities in Gaza (and their obvious deference to dual-allegiance paymasters) will certainly shift some Muslim and Christian votes away from them. To be encouraged, anyway.

Craig, while praising Baroness Warsi, let us not forget Lord Nazir Ahmed who was chased by the “British Friends of Israel” in 2012 for suggested that both Dubya Bush and Tony Blair should be tried as “War Criminals” at ICC for invading and occupying Iraq.

I am writing to share with you an e-mail I received from my mother, Dina Khoury-Nasser, who is now in Gaza. She went five days ago with a team of Palestinian medics from the Augusta Victoria Hospital and other Palestinian hospitals in Occupied Jerusalem in response to the emergency appeal that the Gaza hospitals have issued. The extent of the carnage brought about by Israel has left them incapacitated.

My mother, for those of you in Britain, is a Nightingale (St Thomas’s) theatre nurse; she was trained at the Royal College of Nursing and St Thomas’ Hospital in London (Ironic, given that it is that very hospital, and the reason she is now in Gaza, overlooks Parliament, which has its own responsibility towards this ongoing War).

You are very welcome to share this if you want.

Best,

OmarJ

***

>From Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. 01:55 am 5th August 2014

Today was day four in Gaza. The first two days were like limbo. We felt we were in Gaza but not yet feeling what was happening around. We live in the hospital compound: eat in the compound, work in the compound, sleep in the compound. We see the injured, hear the ambulances, see the bodies and people strewn around everywhere – still it does not sink in. Yesterday evening things started to get real when I saw a child sleeping with his father in the open air on a piece of cardboard. He was there in the morning, there in the evening, and again this morning and this evening. I wonder where is his mother, where is his family? The stories one hears about entire families being annihilated, completely erased from the national registers of citizenship makes your hair stand on end! But still, it does not sink in. Perhaps because I am in the operation room and used to seeing people injured. Then reality hits when the shelling in Jabalia starts. At ten in the evening we receive a lady in her sixties. She is full of dust, full of earth and full of holes throughout her body. Head lacerated, thighs lacerated, leg crushed. I think of where she could have been sitting, what were her thoughts when the shell hit…I thought of mom, I thought of all the older women I know.

When the bombing started this morning, it was children. Our first patient was a little boy around six years old. He had massive lacerations to his groin, abdomen, face and head. He had burns all over his body as well. We were able to manage him in the theatre. I wait to see how he is doing. Then comes Haneen. She is an eight year old; my colleague from the emergency room, Dr. Haytham informed me that a child is coming up with her hand hanging on her side. I went up to Haneen who was waiting calmly in the holding bay. Her eyes were closed. She had a bandage across her head; her eyes were closed because of the swelling from the oedema and the burns to her face. I approached her and held her, and greeted her, and informed her of my name. I held her little hand on the injured side. I told her that I will be with her – she held my fingers. She informed me that her hand hurts. I told her that it was injured and that we will try and fix it. She then asked me about her father and two sisters. I told her that her father was waiting for her. I could not tell her that her sister had died. I still could not tell her that later that evening, her other sister was brought in dead from under the rubble…they were both less than four years old.

I saw Haneen in the ICU later. She was awake and extubated. I greeted her and told her that I was Dina. One eye was now open. She asked me if I had a daughter, I said yes. She asked me what is her name. I said Haya. She said that is a pretty name.

It was a tough day that ended with hopeful news. The plane up above, called zanana (drone) keeps buzzing all around. My colleagues from Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem arrived today with supplies. I felt proud to greet them. The Hospital had done an excellent job sending supplies and individual packs to each of us. They were greeted and their support appreciated. Being there is all that matters. On a personal level, I feel responsible for a big group now. It is very nice to have Dr. Haytham here; he is a wonderful professional colleague. My other colleagues are in Nasser Hospital in Rafah (South of Gaza), treating the injured and witnessing the toll of martyrs. One other colleague is at Al Aqsa Hospital working in surgery.

The smell of blood and death is around the young and the old. Each day we are greeted with the car coming to take the martyrs. Our room is close to the mortuary. You look at the faces of people here – they are all stunned. A nurse on duty looks deeply sad – her son comes with her to work. My friend Bassam from Gaza came to visit me and brought me a lot of goodies to eat. I distributed them among our team and colleagues. I was worried when I looked into his eyes and saw how red they were. The strain on his face was apparent. His son had a close call, and his nephew has ben injured. They are children. They were playing in the street and had just stepped into the house….

The nursing director here had to take a deep breath as he recalled all the children that he had seen. We will need time to heal she said, the pain will take time. The stories are overwhelming and the loss has not yet stopped.

‘I grew up being indoctrinated by Zionists throughout my life. As a child, I was told that the state of Israel is somehow “necessary” to prevent another Holocaust. I was also told that Palestine/Israel was empty and uninhabited when Jews began emigrating there in the late 1800s, and was still sparsely populated after World War II. I was taught that the Jews are a chosen people with the right to their own homeland.

Eventually, however, I started to see the contradictions and began questioning this ideology.

Every time I make my views on Zionism heard, there is a backlash from Zionist Jews who know me and who take it as their responsibility to educate me – as though I am somehow naive about the history of the colonisation of Palestine.

I often hear arguments such as, “… but Hamas uses children as human shields” or “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East”. Eventually, when these arguments are addressed, I’m inevitably dismissed or declared a “self-hating Jew”. But as someone born into a Jewish background, with the knowledge of thousands of years of persecution that this entails, it is also my obligation to identify with the persecution of others – especially if it is being done in the name of my ethnic identity.’

I wish you wouldn’t quote the idiot, Doug. It’s never got anything substantive to say, or any sources for its all-too-predictable assertions. However, I am happy to respond on this occasion: it’s wrong as usual.

For the record I reserve the right to use whatever nick/s I am permitted to use by the blog (not by a dumb cunt trying to take the piss, Hasbaracook) whenever I choose. Though, obviously (? Well, for honest folk, obviously) not for the purposes of deception.

Why was Sayeeda Warsi a Conservative in the first place? Who knows? But ‘I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance…’ (Luke 15:7 King James Bible).
With her resignation she did a very honourable thing, giving up a prestigious and doubtless lucrative position. I don’t know if she has just resigned her Ministerial position, or the Tory Whip, or as an MP. I hope just the Ministerial position and Whip, and that she will continue as an Independent MP.
But for all those who are incensed by the abominations carried out by Israel against the Palestinians, not just now in Gaza, but for more than seventy years, there is to be a huge Demo in London on Saturday, with people coming from all over the country. It starts at 12.00 this Saturday at the BBC, Portland Place (Oxford Circus tube) then marches to Hyde Park via the US Embassy. There have been some very large Demos over the last few weeks at the BBC and Israeli Embassy, but this is going to be a massive one. For more details go to the Stop the War website, and please try to join the protest.

And so the Israeli carnage in Gaza all but disappears from the news agenda. Very quickly, the corporate media are turning to the talks in Cairo, which everyone knows are an utter charade. Surely even Abbas knows that! The intention is to make Israel look like a reasonable partner once again, and it enables our media to show signs of progress. That’s the narrative now. The BBC are delighted that they’ll no longer have to show photos or footage of bloodied children, massacred by the child-killers.

Also disappearing from the BBC agenda is the disquiet within the coalition that Warsi’s departure exposed. That’s quickly being covered over.

Will we see John Simpson wandering round Gaza, staring in disbelief at the destruction of basic amenities, interviewing the families of some of the 430 children murdered by the Zionist war machine?

No. We won’t be seeing Jeremy Bowen either. He tried to report the truth and was shunted for his trouble.

James Reynolds (son of Paul Reynolds) has been reporting from Jerusalem sounding very much like a member of Israel’s Ministry of PR. Much about the rockets, the support from within Israel for the attack on Gaza and the funeral of the Israeli militant, Lt Goldin.

Following the resignation of UK foreign office minister, Baroness Warsi, Prime Minister David Cameron is struggling to quell a growing revolt over his contentious handling of the Gaza crisis.

UK minister resigns over ‘morally indefensible’ Gaza policy

Warsi’s dramatic departure on Tuesday sent shockwaves through the Tory party, bringing to the forefront disputes over both the UK government’s stance regarding the ongoing Gaza crisis and the party’s future election prospects.

A number of senior British political figures, including Tory Party MPs, have begun to publically join the chorus of those demanding the government take a harder line towards Israel.

Israel must end restrictions on Palestinian lands, UK MPs say

Conservative MP Dominic Grieve, who was sacked as Attorney General in Cameron’s recent reshuffle, was among those questioning the proportionality of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza – calling for the Prime Minister to condemn Israel’s airstrikes in the region. Grieve’s sentiments were echoed by communities secretary, Eric Pickles.

Cameron’s response to Ms Warsi’s resignation was measured. The Prime Minister wrote he understood her “strength of feeling on the current crisis,” emphasizing the crisis in Gaza is “intolerable”.

“The BBC’s Jon Donnison said Gaza had “come back to life” during the ceasefire”

All ok now, nothing happened!
——————————
[Ban Ki-Moon] said that while there were reports of Hamas rockets being fired from near UN premises, the “mere suspicion of militant activity does not justify jeopardising the lives and safety of many thousands of innocent civilians”.

His remarks over this crime show clearly his pro-US/Israel stance; he should be kicked out!
———————–
“Mr Kerry told the BBC that the situation could “concentrate people’s minds” on the need to negotiate a two-state solution.”

What a liar and cunt! He knows full well, as does Obama and Cameron, Israel has no intention of allowing a two-state solution!
————————————

“Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans have been returning to their homes.”

“The BBC’s Jon Donnison, in Gaza City, says many people have found nothing left.”

and the London citizenry can for a good run from May 2015 until 2016 as far as the ambitious Bullingdon boy is concerned. Darius Guppy is the other circled in red. Look him up! A self confessed psycho.

A senior Israeli politician has called for the “conquest of the entire Gaza Strip” and the deportation of Palestinians to make way for Jewish settlers.

Moshe Feiglin, the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and a member of the governing Likud party, outlined his plans in an open letter to Benjamin Netanyahu published on Facebook.

Writing last week after the reported abduction of an Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin, he called on the Prime Minister to vastly increase the aggression of Operation Protective Edge, which has already killed more than 1,800 Palestinians and destroyed thousands of homes.

We pulled up to the shining blue facade of the main hall of the Islamic University in Gaza in the summer of 2012. The Palestine Festival of Literature was running a seminar and an afternoon of workshops with students from the Arabic and English departments. Jamal Mahjoub, Selma Dabbagh and Amr Ezzat spoke to a packed auditorium of around 200 students, mostly young women, all veiled. The university enforces a dress code. Someone smiled at me from the crowd and it was a full three seconds before I recognised my friend and colleague Rana. She is not normally veiled. But this is the university with the best facilities.

The students, as always, were smart and challenging. They wanted to know how to get published, they wanted to try out new writing on new ears. They wanted to know what it would take to get the world to listen. Rana tweeted from the workshop, quoting: ‘writing has always been the best way to fight.’

We were taken to see the library. It was large and very well stocked. I asked how they had so many books, when books are so often prevented from passing through the siege. We were taken to see the sorting room. It was the size of a large bedroom and filled to the ceiling with polypropylene cargo sacks covered in tunnel sand and spilling out books. Four women sat at desks at the front, dusting the books off, stamping them, cataloguing them.

The university had been bombed in 2009 during Operation Cast Lead. What was destroyed was rebuilt. It was bombed again last on Saturday. The central building with the bright blue glass facade that greets visitors has been destroyed.

The Israeli army’s Twitter account said it hit ‘a weapons development center located in the Islamic University’. From what I can remember it hit the English department, two auditoriums and a canteen.

The forecourt was littered with charred exam papers, essays and books. One crumpled sheet considered Yeats’s ‘Second Coming’. The student finds herself in agreement with the poet: ‘the great last day will come sooner or later.’

I was upset to hear the Beeb has shunted Jeremy Bowen, for whom I have always had a soft spot.

Apparently Bowen himself, and the Beeb claim that he is on holiday, and that he will soon be back in his normal posish. I hope this is true.

Last time the IDF were unleashed on Gaza, he was a good deal more sympathetic to Israel than he was this time. I think that may have something to do with it. On the other hand, after that he undoubtedly needs a break.

Doug – my original point had to do with the larger numbers of Muslims who do care about the Middle East as compared with the fraction of the small Jewish vote who regard Israel as a priority and the vast majority of the rest of the public who don’t give a stuff either way but select their ‘representatives’ on completely different criteria.

The fact that Israel’s lobbyists and paymasters to some extent determine who runs the show and how doesn’t alter my impression that the Tories ignore – and indeed disrespect – the Muslim vote at their peril.

Tomorrow, the BBC will be broadcasting a DEC appeal for Gaza. Why this time, and not in 2009? Because, this time, Israel has said there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. It would appear that the BBC feels this announcement gives it permission to run the appeal. The corporation’s dependence on what Israel says and how this influences its decision making process is of serious concern.

Israel is on a PR offensive, now the slaughter has abated, to present itself in humanitarian terms, helping to ‘rehabilitate Gaza’, as this article in yesterday’s BICOM briefing states: http://www.bicom.org.uk/news-article/21922/ (Israel shifts focus onto humanitarian aid effort). This is extremely offensive. And yet the BBC seems to be giving Israel credit for its alleged humanitarian concerns towards Gaza.

On the Today programme this morning, the BBC’s media and arts correspondent, David Sillitoe, said of the BBC’s decision to screen the DEC appeal: “Mark Regev, making a statement on Friday, talking about a humanitarian window, a humanitarian crisis, seems to have been instrumental.”

Below is a rough transcription of the item on Today (kindly transcribed by a Fair News volunteer). I would suggest writing to the Director General, Tony Hall, to acknowledge the screening of the DEC appeal on 8th August, but to question the BBC’s dependence on Israel declaring a humanitarian crisis in Gaza – rather than simply accepting the statements of the UN and the DEC committee – before it felt it could do so.

Newsreader: The BBC and Sky have agreed to broadcast a charity appeal for the people of Gaza five years after they attracted thousands of complaints when they rejected a similar request. The BBC says the situation is different with all sides now in agreement on the need for urgent humanitarian aid.”

@ 01:09:07 Sarah Montague announces that tomorrow the BBC, with other media outlets, will broadcast an appeal for Gaza by the DEC. She then interviews the DEC Chief Exec Saleh Saeed.

@ 01:12:09 SM she talks to the BBC’s Media and Arts Correspondent David Sillitoe who repeats the ridiculous ‘impartiality’ arguments trotted out in 2009 when the BBC refused to air the DEC appeal. He then gives this even more ridiculous and offensive explanation for the change:

“DS: Now it’s felt that there is no doubt or debate about this, that Israel has said there is a humanitarian crisis, the ceasefire is there, as it says, as a humanitarian window. So it feels as though the issue of impartiality has come to an end. So, BBC and Sky say there is no issue about compromising impartiality.
“SM: So, it’s because of Israel’s admission that it’s a humanitarian crisis?
“DS: It seems to have been a key part of it. Mark Regev, making a statement on Friday, talking about a humanitarian window, a humanitarian crisis, seems to have been instrumental. I think another key part about it is there were 40,000 complaints when the BBC and Sky didn’t run this appeal five years ago, and there are different people making the decisions now. It was Mark Thompson back then, Tony Hall now. So, there are different people making the decisions. And also perhaps, maybe mindful of the reaction that came when they didn’t run the appeal five years ago.”

Later in the interview Sillitoe also divulges that there were “a number of journalists within the BBC who thought the wrong decision had been made” and the government at the time also thought the same.

Saleh Saeed says the situation now is much worse than in 2009 because of the years of the siege and the far greater number of casualties. He urges people to help in any way they can and go to http://dec.org.uk/ .